1. Waste Plastic
There is a steadily increasing demand for technology capable of converting discarded and waste plastic materials into useful products. This is due in large measure to public concerns over potential environmental damage caused by the presence of these waste materials. According to a recent report from the Office of Solid Waste, about 62% of plastic packaging in the United States is made of polyethylene, the preferred feed for processing waste plastics. Plastics waste is the fastest growing waste product, with about 18 million tons per year in 1995 compared to only four million tons per year in 1970, and this amount is growing by approximately 10% per year. Transforming plastic waste material and particularly polyethylene into useful products presents a unique opportunity to address a growing environmental problem.
Methods for converting such above-mentioned waste plastic into lubricating oils have been described previously. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,150,577 (Miller et al.) and 6,822,126 (Miller), both of which pertain to the production of high viscosity index (VI) lubricating oils from a primarily polyolefin waste plastic feedstock.
2. Biofuels
Many methods have been suggested for utilizing biofuels for energy production in order to compensate for at least a portion of the fossil fuel currently used in such energy production, and thereby also decrease net CO2 emissions in the overall energy production cycle. Unfortunately, biofeedstocks are generally considered to be low energy fuels, and not easily utilized for energy production. The low energy content of biomass renders it generally inadequate for high-efficiency production of energy, such as high-temperature, high-pressure steam or electricity. Additionally, non-uniformity in the raw material (i.e., biomass), differences in its quality, and other similar hard-to-control variations, may cause problems in an energy production cycle that relies heavily on such fuel.
In view of the foregoing, methods and/or systems for integrating biofuel processing with waste plastic processing would be extremely useful—particularly wherein such processing provides for biofuel products, and wherein such processing can serve to ameliorate or mitigate at least some of the limitations typically associated with the processing of biomass.